As the Earth's average temperature rises each year, experts warn that we are nearing a fatal tipping point, 2 degrees Celsius above the norm that will set into motion a cascade of natural disasters that will devastate America and the world.

Guardian India correspondent Michael Safi takes a journey along the Yamuna river. Stretching 855 miles across the north of the country, at its source in the Himalayas, the water is crystal clear. However, once it streams through New Delhi, it turns into one of the filthiest rivers in the world. Rapid urbanization is partly to blame, but so is lax enforcement of laws against illegal dumping.

Polar bears struggle for survival on the melting Arctic ice and move inland toward humankind. This ABC News film investigates the effects of polar bears descending on an Alaskan village and the race to save a vulnerable species.

Just 25 miles off the coast of Los Angeles, the Channel Islands are a paradise that was found, lost, and, in an ecological battle, regained. In a time machine journey alongside scientists involved in their salvation, we come to understand how this tiny group of islands has become a crucible for the reshaping of our relationship with nature.

Arriving at the islands 13,000 years ago, the Chumash people discovered a true paradise. Life was so abundant, both on land and in the sea, it made it seem like resources were infinite. That is, until the first European colonists came to settle.

Disrupting the natural equilibrium of this paradise, successive waves of settlers and visitors used the islands for cattle farming, a vacation destination for the Hollywood elite, and, during World War II, a military base. Pristine nature was turned into a vast wasteland.

After centuries of intense exploitation, the marine and terrestrial ecosystems of the islands had been devastated. To bring back the paradise once lost, a massive restoration plan was designed. But it is subject to many controversies.

Gert-Jan Gruter and his team at Avantium have developed a revolutionary chemical process for converting plant-based sugars into the new building block Furandicarboxylic Acid (FDCA). FDCA can be used to produce a wide range of renewable plant-based materials, but the most exciting application is a polyester known as polyethylene furanoate (PEF). It has several properties that will allow PEF to repl...

The innovation of Günter Hufschmid at the German firm Deurex is a synthetic wax that, when heated under pressure, turns into a light, spongy material that can adsorb about seven times its own weight's worth of oil, chemicals, or other hydrophobic liquids. The invention is a radical improvement to existing "spill management" technologies, which soak up fewer contaminants less quickly and often leav...